


Human Bruise

by ionlyloveyouironically



Series: Ballpoint Pen Capillaries [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Courf is only in here briefly tho, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Past Non-Con, Mentioned very briefly but theres the tag anyway, off-screen non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 01:32:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9944429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionlyloveyouironically/pseuds/ionlyloveyouironically
Summary: R had been acting strangely all week.





	

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: heavy drinking, brief mention of self-induced vomiting; as tagged, off-screen non-con is mentioned in one line, but a character is directly dealing with the effects within the story, so please read safely!

R had been acting strangely all week.

“R’s been acting strangely all week,” Enjolras noted to Courfeyrac. Meaning that he leaned over into Courfeyrac’s personal space and yelled in his ear to be heard over the music. Courfeyrac, unfazed, simply frowned and watched R in the crowd below before nodding thoughtfully. He looked back at him, brow furrowed. “I have no idea why,” Enjolras shouted, answering the unspoken question.

He really didn’t. Last Friday he’d disappeared about halfway through the night and didn’t text anyone but Joly back for the whole weekend, then turned up on Monday looking as chipper as ever, if more inclined to get drunk than usual. But Enjolras could have sworn that there was a tinge of desperate mania to R’s cheerfulness; it was obvious in the way he hadn’t let himself have any rest, constantly flitting from activity to activity and conversation to conversation, always upbeat and witty and hearty.

Enjolras realized R probably hadn’t had any time alone since the previous weekend.

They were at the club they always went to on Fridays. (A couple years ago Courfeyrac, Bahorel, and Enjolras had hit up every club in town to see which one was the best, in the most scientific way possible. The Vault was the best in town on Friday, but the Saturday title went to a little hole in the wall called The Attic, ironically.) He and Courf were sitting on one of the balconies that overlooked the dancefloor, saving the table for everyone else.

Grantaire was _dancing_. In a way that made Enjolras’ heart thump along to the rhythm of the muscles shifting just under R’s skin. He danced with Feuilly’s brother Monty, a tall crow of a boy who always dressed to the nines somehow. His back was plastered to Mont’s front, his arms up and back, looped around Mont’s neck. His shirt was off, head tipped back against Mont’s shoulder, completely bare and open from his expression to where his jeans hung low across his rolling hips.

Enjolras would be guiltily enjoying the sight more if it wasn’t so _weird_ for Grantaire to be doing this, if he wasn’t trying to figure out what was wrong, if he didn’t notice that Monty’s brow was furrowed and his hands on R’s hips was less intimate and more like they were holding R back.

The thing about Grantaire was that he didn’t like getting drunk. He was alright with being tipsy or buzzed, but whenever he realized he was drunk he would either have a panic attack and throw up or get melancholic and go make himself throw up. Enjolras knew it had something to do with his father and stepfather both, but didn’t want to pry as the only time they’d talked about it was when Enjolras had been trying to get him to stop shoving his fingers down his throat.

From the get-go tonight, Grantaire had slammed shots back and proceeded to get very very drunk. Enjolras didn’t get it. Nothing had happened this week as far as he knew (and he made it his business to know about every single aspect of his friends’ lives). Something had to have happened last weekend, but Enjolras didn’t know what, and no one else had seemed like they knew anything either.

On the dancefloor, Monty bared his teeth at one of the other dancers and shifted an arm so that it wrapped around Grantaire’s stomach. They must have backed off, because R laughed and pressed a kiss to the side of Mont’s neck. He responded by patting R’s stomach before returning his hand to his hip.

The others came and went. Combeferre said something snide to Enjolras about his close watch, to which he rolled his eyes with a command of _sober up a bit_. Combeferre tended to get a little mean when he had tequila, so Enj didn’t hold it against him.

Feuilly eventually came back up to rest and keep Courfeyrac company, so Enjolras made the long and winding trek downstairs to the bar to fetch more drinks.

He knew it was probably weird, but Enjolras truly loved being in clubs. The bass thumping through the floor, the lights painting the crowd in various changing colors, the single amalgam of many dancing people combined into one mass of moving energy. It was, in his opinion, one of the truest illustrations of humanity at its core. Pure passion.

He eventually made it to the bar and signaled to the bartender for another round. They came here often enough that the staff remembered their faces and orders, so she nodded back to him briefly before turning back to deal with the overwhelming crush of people at her end. Enjolras went to wait at the other end.

Just as he got there someone stumbled into him and he turned to catch them on instinct. His brain registered warm, slick skin against his hands at the same time Grantaire said, “Is this the part where I say I’ve fallen for you?” He looked up at Enjolras through a few of his curls that fell into his face. Enjolras’ stomach bottomed out for a moment at the sight of his wide, dark, eyes, but then he straightened R up and propped him against the bar.

“Only if you mean it,” Enjolras replied, half-jokingly.

Grantaire laughed, too hard for how funny it actually wasn’t. He was still shirtless, and as he leaned over his arms, braced on the bar counter, Enjolras could plainly see his spine standing at attention through the skin between his prominent shoulder blades. He thought of the dinosaur that killed the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. _Spinosaurus_ , his mental Combeferre helpfully reminded him. _Biggest of all carnivorous dinosaurs, “spine lizard.”_

“Hey, R,” Enjolras started, and Grantaire looked up at him again, and Enjolras’ breath caught, but a whistle from the bartender caught his attention. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

He hurried to the other end of the bar and fought his way back holding the now-full tray, but when he got back R was no longer alone. A man had taken advantage of R’s position and draped himself over his back in a mockery of the way R and Monty had been dancing earlier, hands on R’s hips to hold him in place. Grantaire’s body was rigid, hands clenching the counter of the bar. Enjolras couldn’t see his face because his head was bowed, hair obscuring everything but his tight jaw.

The sight ignited a boiling fury in Enjolras’ gut, because Grantaire was obviously _not_ receptive of that position, and he marched over with no thought but to get that guy _off of him_. But just as he stepped within arm’s reach, the tray was ripped from his hands and being swung drinks-first into the side of the guy’s head.

Glass shattered, on the floor and the man’s head, and he stumbled back away from R and into the fist of a livid Montparnasse. The man went down with one punch, but Mont still descended upon him, looking like a harbinger of death. Enj didn’t stick around to watch, instead taking R by the shoulders and steering him to one of the exits leading outside to the back alley.

R had been shaking throughout the whole of their escape, and he looked around the dark alley with hazy eyes before finding Enjolras. He stared for a moment, then doubled over and threw up onto the pavement between his feet. Enjolras braced his arm against R’s shoulders, stopping him from listing forward. When he was done, he straightened and staggered back to slump against the brick wall, breathing ragged.

Enjolras was a bit dazed. Now that he was in the clarity of the cold outside, he couldn’t remember how all the previous events had culminated in him shivering in the frigid air opposite a huddled and shaking Grantaire.

R ran a hand through his hair and finally looked at Enjolras again. The only light in the alley was a white fluorescent bar fixed over the door they had just exited from, and it painted Grantaire in a clash of dim light and shadow, a bruise in human form.

Grantaire had a thin face, but it was easy to forget how goddamned _skinny_ he was under his clothing. His ribs were stark in the harsh lighting, his hip bones jutting out of a concave stomach. His sternum was a deep rut all the way to his collarbones, which shifted under his skin like the connecting rod pumping the wheels of an old steam locomotive. His skin was wet, and Enjolras only then realized that he must’ve gotten the drinks spilled on him as well when Monty smashed the tray into the creepy guy.

“Quit,” R bit out, turning away. He was still shaking, either from the cold or what had happened inside, Enjolras didn’t know.

“Quit what?”

“Fuckin’… lookin’ at me like that.” He pulled out a long piece of cloth hanging from his back pocket, which turned out to be is absent shirt, and began wiping at his shoulders. The action jolted Enjolras from his daze, and he stepped forward, pulling his sweater over his head.

“Sorry, I didn’t even think, take this.”

Grantaire looked at him like he was crazy. “What-”

“You’ve been shaking this whole time, man, just- here.” He shoved it in R’s face and only relented once the other grabbed it and put it on. “Are you alright?”

He looked down and fiddled with the cuffs of the sleeves; they extended past his fingertips. The sweater absolutely swallowed him. “What’re you talkin’ ‘bout?” His Gulf coast accent got so much thicker when he was drunk.

“Well I guess I’m talking about that guy, and Monty, and the way you’ve been acting all week,” he answered, exasperation coloring his tone.

“I haven’t been acting any way all week,” he mumbled.

“R, come on, I _know_ you. I can tell when you’re not acting like yourself.” Grantaire shook his head back and forth. “You’ve been getting drunk every day this week, you haven’t let yourself rest, I doubt you’ve even been eating enough…” He trailed off as Grantaire’s head began to shake faster, and Enjolras noted there were tears on his cheeks. “R, I’m sorry,” he said taking a step forward.

“No,” Grantaire barked out, and Enjolras froze. Grantaire reached up and scrubbed at his face with the heels of his hands. “You don’t- don’t be sorry. You’re fine.” He took a deep breath and let it out shakily. “I know- that guy that was in there, we had a couple classes together last semester.” He looked away from Enjolras and scratched his neck. “We kinda flirted all last semester, and then I saw him here last week, and we danced, and it was _fine_ , but then we went to the bathroom and I changed my mind but he got me off anyway so I blew him and it wasn’t even a big _deal_ , that shit happens all the _time_ , but I just…” He took in another breath, but it sounded more like a sob.

_Shit. Fuck fuck fuckfuckfuckfuck._ He hadn’t known. He’d had _no idea_. Someone had hurt his friend, and he would make them pay, but for now Grantaire needed someone.

“Grantaire,” Enjolras said softly. He was vibrating with anger, the way he used to do when he was a teenager and he would trash his room, except this was worse, because this required softness instead of violent fury, so he had to tamp it down for R’s sake. “Can I hug you?”

He scoffed, a sad, wet, self-deprecating sound. “Sure, if you want.” He still had his head down and faced away, so Enjolras stepped up slowly and gently pulled him tightly against his chest. Their six-inch height difference allowed R to relax his forehead against the column of Enjolras’ throat and lightly grasp his thin T-shirt at the waist. Enjolras wrapped his arms around his pointy shoulders and waited for him to relax before speaking.

“You have every right to be upset. It was wrong of him to do that, wrong of him to touch you when you didn’t want to and then make you feel like you had to do that. If I ever see him again I’m gonna crush his fucking head.” He took a breath to calm himself, and held Grantaire just a little tighter. Grantaire put his arms around his waist; it calmed Enjolras. “I’m sorry you’ve been carrying this around with you all alone for this long. I’m sorry I didn’t ask sooner.”

R let out a little _tch_ sound against Enjolras’ chest. “Wouldn’a told you anyway.”

Enjolras frowned, and itched one of Grantaire’s curls away from his mouth. “R, you know we all love you.” He ignored the additional scoff. “You could have told any of us and we would have given you anything you needed.”

“I didn’ wanna make a big deal out of nothing.”

“That’s-”

“ _And_ ,” he continued, squeezing around Enjolras’ waist briefly to silence him, “I didn’t wanna think about it. I only told you just now because I was freaking out and. Well, you’re you, y’know?”

“Uh, no? I don’t know.” His mind was still stuck on _a big deal out of nothing_.

He felt Grantaire roll his eyes. “You’re just so fucking earnest all the time, man, I dunno. You’ve got a comforting personality or some shit.”

Enjolras laughed. “I’ve literally never been called _comforting_ in my entire life.” He was a gay six-foot-tall half-black law student with a cloud of kinky blonde curls and an ill-advised tattoo on his bicep. He was every conservative’s worst nightmare, and in Texas, there were a _lot_ of conservatives.

“Well, you are, so.” Grantaire shrugged one shoulder, and then leaned a little more into Enjolras, who would have enjoyed it if he wasn’t so cold or if Grantaire wasn’t so worryingly thin. He waited before saying, “Sorry for crying on you and shit.”

“You don’t-”

“I’ve just. Things are shitty, and I’m not doing well in class, and I haven’t been this sad in a long time, and then this happened too, so…” His voice got wobblier as the sentence went on, and Enjolras could feel the bob of his Adam’s apple against his chest as R swallowed.

“Hey,” Enjolras cut in gently. “You don’t have to, like, justify yourself, alright? It would be absolutely okay to need someone for just one of those things. And like I said, we all love you. We _do_ ,” he stressed before R could deny it again. “And if you need help with your class, I can help.”

Grantaire shook his head. “You don’t have to feel obligated to offer just because I’m whining.”

“I don’t do things out of _obligation_ , Grantaire. I do them because I want to.” His tone was probably a bit too firm, because R stilled and didn’t respond. Enjolras mentally flailed. “You wanna crash at my place tonight?” he blurted out, instantly regretting it. “I can take the couch, everyone knows I have the best bed.” _Whatever it takes to let you know I’m here._

Grantaire stayed silent a moment longer, then said, “Everyone also knows you have the biggest bed _ever_ , so we can share. If you don’t mind me being there at all.”

“I’m pretty sure I offered, so why would I mind?”

“I dunno, maybe you felt awkward or wanted to be polite-”

“Me? Polite? Have you ever met me?” he asked incredulously, looking down at Grantaire. His eyes were closed, but there was a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, and Enjolras felt like he could fly. “As for awkward, I revel in it. I want everyone to feel awkward all the time.”

Grantaire laughed then, a rough, tiny sound, but still a laugh all the same. “You’re so stupid.”

“Ad hominem. Doesn’t work, pal.”

He made the _tch_ sound again and stepped back, ending the extended hug. Enjolras realized again how cold it was outside and wondered when he’d stopped noticing. He pulled his phone out and texted Courfeyrac asking him to bring his coat. He did, and Enjolras let him know that he and R were leaving for the night. With that, they made their way to Enjolras’ apartment.

He lived not very far away from the town’s main square, but Grantaire still stumbled from exhaustion when they stepped through the door.

“Do you need any PJ’s, or are you an underwear sleeper?” Enjolras asked, leading the way to the bedroom.

Grantaire blinked back at him blearily. “Do you really think I could fit underwear in these jeans?” he replied, pointing to where they were slung dangerously low on his hips.

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “I’ll get you some pants then.”

When they were settled in bed, side by side even though there was plenty of room, Grantaire took a breath and said, “I’v’n… I, _haven’t_ wanted to be alone. So thank you.” Either from alcohol or fatigue, Grantaire’s _thank you_ sounded more like _thanky_.

“No problem,” Enjolras replied, turning his head to look at him. His eyes were squinted, barely open, but still gazing at Enjolras.

“You’re… good. Warm,” he babbled. “You’re like. When you watch the alternate ending of a movie and it’s better than the actual ending.”

Enjolras felt an unexpected lump rise in his throat, and blamed it on the evening’s events instead of what R was saying. “Go to sleep, bud,” he whispered.

Grantaire made a humming noise and relaxed into the pillows, asleep almost instantly. Enjolras watched him breathe for a little while, until he couldn’t ignore how undeniably creepy he was being, and pulled out his phone.

_Me_ : (1:13 am)  
_Is everyone doing okay?_

Courfeyrac responded within seconds.

**_Yo-Yo Man_** : (1:13 am)  
**_We’re getting ready to go home, it’s no fun w out u or r. Fee and Mont left after he beat the shit outta some dude_**

Enjolras winced. Mont wasn’t quick to anger, but violence came quickly when he did, and half a lifetime of living on the streets of San Antonio made him an intimidating brawler.

_Yikes._

**_Guy probly deserved it. Mont only gets bloody for good reason_ **

_RIP in peace_

**_He’s gonna wish he was dead tomorrow lmao, he’ll be eating nothing but soup for a while_ **

_Mont didn’t get caught, right?_

**_Ofc not, Feuilly is a criminal mastermind when it comes to avoiding consequences_ **

_Leave my boy alone_

**_Jfc how many boys are yours??? You have Fee, R in your bed,,, we’re talking about that later btw_ **

_Not my story to tell. But you can def harangue me for hoarding Feuilly, aka the love of my life_

**_Will do, chief. Gotta tuck the meanie in tho, good night!!_ **

_Sleep well, friend <3_

Enjolras rolled over to put his phone back on the nightstand, and Grantaire stirred. “Enj?”

He turned back over to face him. “Watcha need?”

Grantaire sighed and closed his eyes again. “Nothin’.” He curled up, knees almost to his chest and head ducked down, level with Enjolras’ shoulder, but with at least three inches between them.

Enjolras scooted over so that Grantaire’s forehead brushed his shoulder, and Grantaire’s knees rested against his side. Two tiny points of contact that anchored him to this time and place. “This okay?” he asked.

Grantaire sighed out a _yes_ , and fell back asleep. Enjolras stayed up watching over him for hours, and didn’t move.

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first Les Mis fic, so thank you for reading!
> 
> 1) this is based in Texas, bc write what you know amirite?
> 
> 2) courf's name in enj's phone is absolutely a reference to that one vine bc courf cries from laughter every single time he sees it
> 
> Kudos and comments are appreciated! If people like this I'll make it onto a series that includes all the other amis as well!


End file.
